World Cup 2018 | Argentina v Croatia Tips | 21st June 2018

GROUP D of the 2018 World Cup continues on Thursday as Argentina take on Croatia in Nizhny Novgorod. Adam Goodwin shares his thoughts on the best betting angle.

Argentina v Croatia | Saturday 21st June 2018, 19:00 | ITV

After a failing to beat minnows Iceland in their opening group game, this is a must-win game for Jorge Sampaoli’s Argentina side.

Croatia, on the other hand, secured a comfortable 2-0 win against Nigeria on Saturday night.

0-0 half-time

Within the past few days, AC Milan forward Nikola Kalinic has been sent home from the World Cup after he refused to come on as a substitute in that victory against Nigeria. Whether this will have an affect on the Croats, we’re yet to find out.

For Argentina, a centre-midfield consisting of Javier Mascherano and Lucas Biglia looked shaky on Saturday and it’s common knowledge that Croatia have arguably the best midfield at the World Cup, so it’s going to be a tough ask for La Selección. But they do have Lionel Messi…

Argentina can’t afford to lose this game so don’t expect them to go too gung-ho. If they try and play too offensively, they’ll know that Croatia have the attacking quality of Ivan Perisic and Ante Rebic on the counter-attack. They’ll bode their time and wait for the right moment to utilise the likes of Lionel Messi and Sergio Aguero.

Croatia were drawing at half-time in 7/12 (58%) of their qualifying games and their games very rarely saw many goals. They’ll know a draw would be a great result heading into their final group game, so expect them to try and keep it as tight for as long as possible.